Gork, the Teenage Dragon

by Gabe Hudson

  “Hey!” roars the receptionist. “You’re not allowed back there!” Then she shouts, “Security! Security!” And that’s when the alarm explodes inside the building, and a mega siren commences booming over and over and over. And as I bound on my hind legs I spread my wings and flap them twice and burst into flight.

  And as I fly down the corridor, for the very first time this morning a smile blooms across my beak.

  Yes sir.

  It sure does feel good to be back.

  The siren continues to explode around me. It’s a high-pitched screeching sound, blasting down the corridors with a rhythmic throbbing noise.

  As I flap my wings and fly onward, the yellow smartfoam® is falling off me like strips of hide and I’m grateful to be free of the nasty stuff. My green scales are still stinging from the smartfoam®’s poison though.

  Now as I whip round a corner and shoot forth I happen to look up and:

  Uh-oh.

  Crouched there at the other end of the corridor is a psychotic-looking dragon Commando fool from the security detail I’d seen near the front of the Institute. And this WarWings Commando bastard is wearing full Conquer Gear and his giant black horns are sticking out of his red helmet. A real nasty piece of work. And I can’t help but admire how even with his beak closed his giant fangs protrude like tusks.

  Now the Commando snorts flames out his nostrils and aims his powerstaff at me and bellows, “Halt!”

  Anyway, I know I don’t have enough BIOCON juice to launch into close-quarter combat with this Commando bastard. So I do the only thing I can do at this point. I just keep flying right at this sonuvabitch. With no plan or even a shred of hope I decide my best bet is improvised combat, or what my grandpa Dr. Terrible calls ImproBattle.

  Thwack-thwack.

  And I suddenly become aware of my oversized heart in my rib cage, which is hammering away like crazy. I’m seeing yellow dots swimming in the air and I can feel myself starting to faint. Which for a dragon fool is one of the scariest things that can happen to you, to black out in midflight. Because when this happens one thing is for sure, you will crash. Even as I’m in the middle of fainting here in the corridor, some part of my fading brain knows I’m in big trouble.

  And this is exactly what happens to me as I’m flying directly at that Commando bastard. I can feel my jumbo heart crank up inside my chest, and then I faint. Blackout.

  But I only black out for a half second. Or a second, max.

  And when I come to, I’m still flying.

  I’m still airborne.

  I’m dazed and terrified.

  Now the Commando fool snorts flames out his nostrils and takes careful aim with his powerstaff.

  “This is your last warning!” he shouts. “Halt now!”

  Yeah right, buddy. Like I even have a choice anymore.

  In case you haven’t noticed, I’m fainting all over the place here. So you can scream at me all you want to. Cuz I’m not stopping.

  And then the Commando flips open his beak and shoots his tongue at me like a bullet.

  Zing.

  The red blur whizzes straight for my head. And I can tell by how the Commando is crouched there on his scaly muscular hind legs, with his wings spread wide and his tail lifted high, that he’s trained in the dragon martial art of tongue-fu.

  Now tongue-fu is no joke, and this bastard looks like he means business. I swear he looks like he’s aiming to take my scaly head off with his tongue.

  So I’m hurtling toward this Security Commando and now he’s added his lethal tongue into the mix. And because my WING STRENGTH & FLIGHT CAPABILITY are completely zonked I spin out of control and bounce headfirst off the wall. But this maniac hasn’t calculated for my loss of control and his red tongue rockets right by me, missing me by an inch. And his tongue zooms another forty feet past me and then strikes the middle of the ceiling and stays embedded there.

  Whoa.

  Now the Commando is frantically whipping his long green neck back and forth, trying to rip his tongue free from the ceiling and retract it fifty feet down the corridor and back into his beak.

  So I blast this fool with a supersonic fireball. But my aim is even worse than normal. Now my supersonic fireball ricochets off the ceiling and zooms right at the Commando’s green webbed feet and the bastard leaps up just slightly to avoid it. But this turns out to be a big mistake. Because like a tape measure, his tongue’s retracting feature automatically initiates.

  Zing.

  He instantly shoots forward and rockets down the long corridor. I have my back to the wall and watch the Commando fly right past me. He slams into the ceiling face-first. Now he’s just hanging there stuck to the ceiling, while little bits of stone rain down.

  Then the Commando falls to the ground.

  Plunk.

  I squat there gasping. And I peer down the corridor at the dragon’s still form sprawled out in the dust and rubble.

  I sure hope he gave himself amnesia. Otherwise, when that fool wakes up, he’s never going to stop until he finds me!

  And then using the last precious drops of my BIOCON juice, I whirl around and flap my wings and shoot down the corridor in the opposite direction from where the Commando is laid out.

  Thwack-thwack.

  [ 32 ]

  WHAT A FITTING PLACE FOR ME TO DIE, HERE IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

  So this is how I come to find myself shooting down one corridor after another and turning new corners and shooting down another corridor and another and another.

  I can hear this light beeping noise in my earhole, signaling to me that my BIOCON LEVS aren’t just running low. They’re nearly out.

  Speaking frankly here, at this point there’s no plan on my part to save my life or anything. The plan is simply to fly for as long as I can fly before crashing. That’s really the extent of my worldview now that my WILL TO POWER is ThrashBait.

  Now I’m just grateful each time I hear my leathery wings flap, because at least I know I have a few more moments left of airborne life.

  And as I fly deeper and deeper into the Center for Combat & Conquer, I can’t help but think about all the good times I had with Dr. Terrible in this building over the years. All these memories come bubbling up into my skull, which I guess is the equivalent of my life flashing in front of me before the big sleep.

  Thwack-thwack.

  And as I fly along through the corridor I remember one time in particular when me and Dr. Terrible were in the Center’s Invader Module. I’d landed my spaceship on the planet Kooverolp. I swaggered out of the spaceship and looked at all the furry purple Gershwan Boiks and snorted flames out my nostrils and I held up my powerstaff and roared, “My name is Gork The Terrible! And I’m here to conquer your planet Kooverolp! And if you don’t want to die, you will surrender to me now!”

  Now the artificial Gershwan Boiks in the Invader Module that day had instantly come charging right at me by the thousands while letting out their strange buzzing war cry. So I’d turned away from the oncoming savages with the idea of running back to my spaceship.

  But before I could even lift a webbed foot, I fainted.

  Then, when I came to, the Gershwan Boiks had already gnawed off my left leg and now had started in on my right leg.

  I howled.

  At that moment, my scaly grandpa Dr. Terrible had shut down the module and he’d come into the Virtual Terrain Area laughing so hard his beak was clacking, and then the two of us had a real good laugh over that one. Over what a coward I was.

  “Oh Gork, what are we going to do with you?” said Dr. Terrible, snorting flamestreams.

  Then he fetched the tip of his tail to affectionately whap me upside my scaly green head. And on that particular day we’d both found my lack of WILL TO POWER hilarious. It was a powerful bonding experience for us both. I knew it in my giant sensitive heart, that my grandpa Dr. Terrible felt the same way as me that day. And on that day, we were family.

  But now here it is, the most important day o
f my life, and I’m nowhere near the dragon chick I want to be my Queen. Instead I’m flying deeper and deeper into the Institute’s Center for Combat & Conquer.

  Thwack-thwack.

  Looking around, I realize I’m lost. There’s this steady rhythmic chirping in my earhole, only now it’s faster. I am nearing the end. My BIOCON LEVS must be insanely low. Like life-threateningly low. Like a rabid mouse could kill me right now. That’s how low.

  Who knew when I woke up this morning in my lair that this is how things would end? That I was destined to become just another Crown Day casualty.

  Every year, hundreds of WarWings cadets die on Crown Day. The stakes are that high. Now I will join their ranks.

  Me, just a forgotten number to be swept into the dustbin of history.

  I flap my wings and fly forward.

  A wave of self-pity washes over me.

  I feel so tired that just breathing is an effort.

  The air is like hardening lava and my wings are struggling to get any purchase in it.

  I coast forward through the air.

  And I think:

  How are your BIOCON LEVS?

  You can’t ignore them anymore. You’ve got to check. No matter how scary that prospect is to you, you can’t flap another wing until you check. You’ve already let it go on too long without checking and if you—

  And then I think:

  OK OK OK OK OK. I’ll check my LEVS already. In the meantime do me a big favor and shut up.

  So I glance down at my powerstaff but instantly wish I hadn’t. Because my data reads like something out of a nightmare:

  CADET NAME: Gork The Terrible

  STATUS: Goner

  Goner

  Goner

  Goner

  Goner

  Goner

  Yikes. I now rank dead last in my entire senior class, and my WILL TO POWER status is Goner. The screen just keeps flashing Goner Goner Goner Goner Goner.

  I fall out of the air and crash onto the floor. I lie crumpled up here. My wings keep flapping because the mechanism in my scaly green head that controls them is broken. My wings are pushing the rest of my body around awkwardly on the floor. But then my wings accidentally crush themselves against the floor and get bent. I feel the flesh in one of them tear a little bit. But I don’t have the energy to care.

  I can hear the faint electronic chirping in my earhole as it speeds up.

  Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep.

  Then the chirping cuts out.

  I slither over to a crook in the wall and fold myself into it, preparing myself to die. To go to the Underworld. Professor Nog. It won’t be long before I see Nog in the Underworld. He won’t be surprised to see me, and I have to wonder if when I first appear down there he’ll say I told you so. Especially considering how he tried to warn me that the Oddsmakers had my death at 99.9% today.

  This little crook in the wall is surprisingly comfortable. I don’t try to fight my death. I just go with it. I close my eyes and feel my essence drift off into the big sleep.

  When I open my eyes, I’m surprised to discover I’m not dead.

  I’m still in the crook of the wall.

  A powerful strange and dense aroma comes wafting down the corridor, tickling my nostrils. It’s a kind of a luscious funk smell, and it’s definitely getting my juices going. I figure it’s the odor that woke me from my death nap.

  Now I see a white dot at the other end of the corridor. So I lie here in the crook in the wall and watch as the white dot approaches.

  Who the heck is intruding on my death?

  Leave me alone.

  Can’t I just die without somebody messing that up too?

  Well that funky smell is now overwhelming, and it’s definitely sexy. The smell makes me feel like I’m taking a lava bath with some sort of luscious oils. My nostrils flare.

  The white dot keeps coming.

  Now I can see what it is.

  It’s a dragonette, flying along.

  And when she gets within forty feet or so I can see she’s a professor. That’s what the white dot was, her white robes. I’ve never seen her before but she’s definitely wearing the Institute’s robe and cloak.

  As I stay hidden out of sight against the wall and watch her approach I notice her robe is cut short and that her toe claws are painted pink. She also has these two boss black horns on her scaly green head, which must be seven feet long and curve up into these three-pronged tips, which look way legit.

  But what really catches my attention about this dragoness is her thick green tail, which looks to be twice as thick as a normal dragon tail. And I really don’t know how to say this, except to say that this dragoness is seriously luscious. And juicy. Maybe that’s a terrible thing to say because I’m dying and all, but there it is. This is one seriously juicy-looking dragonette.

  So that’s what the powerful oily odor is.

  Her musk, her mating scent. She’s in heat. This is the time of her Mating Cycle when she’s most fertile.

  You don’t need to be a genius to know this, because you can just feel it with every molecule in your body.

  I’ve never smelled anything like it. The chicks at WarWings have their Mating Cycles, but they’re not old enough to exude a scent like this. This thick musk can only come from an ovowomb that knows exactly what it wants and how to get it.

  I realize my tongue is drooping out of my beak, and I’m panting.

  Now this is a monstrous humiliation. To be dying, and yet to be so amped up with luscious feeling because of this dragoness’s powerful odor. There’s no dignity in it, that’s for sure. And if I had enough TURBO FIEND juice to move my tail it would slink between my hind legs, because of how skeezy I’m feeling right now.

  Now this glorious chick with the pink toe claws is maybe thirty feet away from where I’m lying slumped against the crook in the wall, and she is lazily flapping her wings and flying in my direction. But this dragoness doesn’t see me here on account of how I’m slumped over so low to the ground. I can’t keep my eyes off her massive green tail. The sight of it arched high over her scaly head is intoxicating.

  Anyway, a thick tail like that coupled with her potent raw mating musk is a deadly combo, let me tell you. I feel a delirious bolt of lust surge through my haunches, and dark clouds appear on the horizon of my mind.

  If I wasn’t so excited, I’d be terrified.

  [ 33 ]

  THE MYSTERIOUS DRAGONESS WITH THE THICK TAIL

  I squirm out from my hiding place and slither on my belly like a snake out to the middle of the corridor.

  Well this dragonette abruptly comes to a halt and hovers there flapping her wings and treading air, looking down at me with surprise.

  “Hey,” I whisper from down on the floor, as I eyeball her thick tail swishing around behind her. “You smellth goodth. Where here Dr. Terrible is?”

  Because my BIOCON LEVS have run dry, my speech and cognition functions have melted.

  “You talking about the Dr. Terrible?” she purrs.

  I notice how the chick’s voice echoes off the stone walls. Behind this dragonette I see what I think are a pair of yellow eyeballs looking at me from down the hall, but I can’t be sure. Mainly because it’s hard for me to focus on anything with this dragonette’s fine giant tail waving around like that. And it makes my green scales pucker up and I feel kind of funny, like there are little lightning bolts shooting up and down my tail.

  Now there’s really no other way for me to put this, except to say I’m overcome by a super-strong and specific desire to rub scales with this chick. Like I might go insane if I don’t rub scales with this dragoness, is the way I’m feeling.

  “Just oneth Dr. Terrible,” I whisper. At that moment I start coughing like a bastard and blood spurts out my nostrils onto the floor. It’s embarrassing, to be spurting up blood like this. To completely lose control of my body in front of this chick.

  Uh-oh. Here we go.

  So this is what dying fee
ls like.

  “Thorry,” I whisper, looking up at the dragoness, who is still hovering above me in midair with her huge tail whipping back and forth.

  I start coughing again and more blood spurts out my nostrils. And the blood seems to be gushing more freely, like a dam has broken.

  “Really thorry,” I whisper. Normally, saying sorry would be a death sentence but since I’m already dying, it doesn’t matter. Now my left wing convulses and my wing bends against the floor and pushes me forward into the pool of my own blood.

  “I dying fasth,” I whisper.

  The way this dragonette’s enormous tail is wagging back and forth like that, I feel like I’m being hypnotized. And her thick oily funky scent shooting up my nasal passages sends a strong lust rippling through my haunches and makes my toe claws shudder. I can’t really explain it but I suddenly have the strongest desire for this older dragonette to lay my eggs. I want to mate with her. I can practically feel her ovowomb throbbing here in the corridor.

  “No, I don’t imagine there is more than one Dr. Terrible,” she purrs. “They certainly broke the mold when they made that old dragon!”

  Her wings are still flapping and she’s hovering here in front of me, treading air.

  I force myself to look away from the tail and instead to peer into this dragonette’s hooded yellow eyes.

  “He’th my grandpath. Where he? I need’th talkth wid that bastardth.” And then I add: “Niceth tail. Yours. Ith thick. Yourth tailth thick.”

  She makes a little excited screeching sound in the back of her throat and then flaps her wings and flies in closer and peers down at me.

  “I knew there was something familiar ’bout you,” she purrs.

  She reaches out and puts a long black claw under my beak and raises it so she can see me better. Now our faces are just inches apart, and in the dim corridor light I can see each individual green scale around her eyes quite clearly and they are luscious to be sure.